When We Stand Together
by alienyouthct
Summary: Dawn spent her first three years of high school on the mouth of hell. Compared to that, Reefside is practically a vacation…
1. Chapter 1

Title: _When We Stand Together_  
><span>Author:<span> JoeHundredaire  
><span>Rating:<span> R/FR18.  
><span>Disclaimer:<span> Right, I actually went and checked to be sure this time… _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and all associated characters belong to Fran and Kaz Kuzui. Even though this story sticks purely to the American programming, I still feel I should disclaim Toei Company because without their _Bakuryū Sentai Abaranger_ - or _Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger_ for that matter - we wouldn't have the Power Rangers franchise much less _Power Rangers Dino Thunder_. Not mine, don't sue, et cetera.  
><span>Summary:<span> Dawn spent her first three years of high school on the mouth of hell. Compared to that, Reefside is practically a vacation…  
><span>Joe's Note:<span> Just another weird little idea I was toying with. Unlike the past, I've made absolutely no effort to make the Buffyverse and Power Rangers timelines play nice and then build from there; you'll have to just sorta roll with it and pick up the contextual clues as to how it all comes together. This is an expansion of the one-shot _Replay_ that I posted on International Day of Femslash, and so parts of it may seem familiar to you.

* * *

><p><em>"I wanna know, know where you're at. I'm at the front, baby you're still at the back. Oh… can you tell me where, tell me where you're at? Freak you out, freak you out, freak you out. Freak you out, freak you out, freak you out, freak you out."<em>

Sitting on the picnic table with her legs spread and her arms wrapped around her girlfriend's waist, Dawn Summers did her best to keep a straight face as she listened to Kira Ford sing. Because while she was completely and totally supportive of the girl's performances… her original work still was about as deep as Rhianna's songs. But they could work on that. After all, the fact that she was moving past her all-cover phase into a mix of cover songs and originals was progress in and of itself.

While it pained her to admit it, Dawn was actually kinda glad that Buffy had sent her away in those last days before the fall of Sunnydale. Or rather that she'd tried to. As soon as Dawn had woken up from her wonderful experience with being chloroformed, she'd promptly tasered Xander before dumping him off at a nearby church and stealing the car. She'd been tempted to turn around and head back to Buffy but… well, things between them had been strained enough due to Dawn's part in trying to evict Buffy. She had no desire to see how much further things would degrade if she stuck around. And so instead she'd taken the car, the supplies that Xander had packed, and a goodly portion of her wardrobe, and disappeared into the night.

Well, the car, supplies, some clothes, and a decent amount of money. Dawn smirked as she shot a glance back over her shoulder at her messenger bag. Caught up as she'd been in her obsession with resurrecting Buffy, Willow had been totally unaware of Dawn systematically draining money from a half-dozen sources after her mother's death. It still amused her to no end to think that someone as smart as Willow could possibly think that they'd blown through her mother's life savings, the proceeds from the sale of the gallery, and Hank's guilt-induced oversized child support payment in a matter of months. She'd quietly used it to keep the house afloat during Buffy's Doublemeat Palace phase, but most of it had still been kicking around in her savings account when she arrived in Reefside. At which point she'd decided that… well, she'd damn well earned the right to spoil herself a bit.

New laptop - and smartphone and tablet - in tow, Dawn had started visiting the Cyberspace Cafe in hopes of finding more people with similar interests. The owner Hayley Ziktor had turned out to be pretty cool, while Ethan James had been… interesting, if a bit too geeky for her tastes. She'd been quickly adopted by a group of girls interesting in roleplaying games, although that might have been due to the fact that she brought a complete set of _Dungeons & Dragons_ fourth edition books to the party. Time had flown by, friends had been made, and then a week before summer's end, Hayley had announced that she'd be restarting live entertainment when the new school year began. And Dawn had met Kira.

Kira was… a bit like that girl Kit that Dawn had met in her last year at Sunnydale High, a bit like Janice, a bit like Kennedy, and a lot like nobody Dawn had ever met before. She was a giant ball of contradictions, sass, and energy, wrapped in fishnet-loving, black-heavy shell. It had been love at first sight, or at least mutual interest, with Dawn almost immediately proposing that she help Kira record her songs for release on the iTunes Music Store as a reason to spend time with the petite brunette. Kira had eagerly accepted, offering to take Dawn out to dinner to discuss the idea. They hadn't ended up talking much business at the restaurant… or at all when they'd gone back to Dawn's apartment afterward for 'coffee'.

They'd pretty much skipped the 'collaborators' phase to go straight to being girlfriends with interlocking interests, but that was fine with Dawn. The catcalls and looks they got from boys at school, she wasn't quite as fine with but she could deal. She wasn't going to modify her behavior because nobody had taught the douchebags she shared classes with how to properly behave in public. And- Dawn was pulled from her thoughts as a shadow fell over her and Kira, and she looked up to find Principal Randall scowling as she scribbled something in the open notepad she was carrying. "Miss Ford, I'm afraid you need written permission to perform on school grounds. Let's go."

Knowing that her girlfriend was just as good as she was at opening her mouth and getting into trouble, Dawn wasn't at all surprised when Kira opted to return fire rather than concede defeat and accept the inevitable. "Are you aware that kids who play an instrument have a fifty percent higher chance of getting into college?"

That made Randall look up, peering over the top of her glasses as she slowly looked Kira up and down. "Well… you're hardly college material, now are you, Miss Ford? Now come with me."

Wow. Holy unprofessional conduct, Batman. Dawn waited for Kira to slide off the table first before hopping down behind her, grabbing both their bags as she joined a procession that included not only Kira and the principal, but also some kid who looked like he'd been dragged off the soccer field. Evidently it was Crack Down on Everyone Having Fun Day, and someone had forgotten to forward Kira and Soccer Boy the memo.

They didn't even manage to clear the edge of the crowd of admirers that Kira's performance had attracted when the sprinklers suddenly burst to life, soaking all four of them within seconds. As Kira swore violently and tried to curl herself around her guitar to protect it, Dawn's eyes swept back and forth across the lawn… and then landed on a familiar black boy who looked incredibly pleased with himself as he strolled along under an umbrella. Her right hand curling into a fist, Dawn smirked. How nice of Ethan to provide her with an easy way to join Kira in detention…

* * *

><p>"Well what do you do in your spare time?"<p>

"Me? I go out with girls. You know, they're the ones at school that smell really good, with the long hair and the makeup?"

"Oh, it's like that, is it?"

"Yeah. It's like that."

Dawn rolled her eyes as Ethan and Conner McKnight bickered back and forth. Not only because on one hand, Ethan had no leg to stand on - his love life was kinda like his Ferrari: he didn't have one - but because on the other, Conner was all talk and no getting any action. "Ahem." Both boys looked over at her, and she made a show out of using the arm wrapped around Kira's waist to pull the brunette closer, pressing a kiss to the corner of her girlfriend's mouth. "Raise your hand if you actually have a girlfriend?" Dawn raised her free hand, while Kira raised the one that wasn't stuffed into one of the back pockets of Dawn's jeans. The boys grimaced practically in sync. "That's what I thought."

* * *

><p>Why hadn't they just waited near the hole for rescue to come? They all had cell phones and unlike Kira, Dawn had a non-Verizon carrier and so she actually had service in the majority of Reefside. But no. After Conner had made a brief - and unsuccessful - attempt to climb to freedom, the others had decided that wandering through the tunnels was a good idea. Then they'd found a dinosaur skeleton sticking out of a wall, Conner had been dumb enough to touch it, and now they were in someone's high tech secret lair.<p>

And Kira was totally right about it being a cool place to shoot a video for her YouTube channel, but focus damn it!

Thanks to her time in Sunnydale, Dawn had long ago learned the importance of being as observant as possible and so she was the first to notice the giant chunk of rock sitting in the middle of the room, hissing softly as it emitted thick tendrils of smoke. While on one hand, the walnut-sized gems that studded the top appealed to her inner kleptomaniac, on the other… it was a rock that was somehow smoking on its own. And sitting in someone's lair. It would take a special kind of idiot to mess with something like that.

Lo and behold, Conner was that kind of idiot. Brushing past her, he reached out to grab at the largest gem only to flinch back when Ethan called out to him. "Yo, don't touch that!"

"Why not?"

"You really are taking this dumb jock thing to a whole new level."

Conner just rolled his eyes in response. "Look. I have sat through enough lame science classes to know that thing looks really prehistoric." Reaching out again, he let his hand hover over the red stone. "And while detention trips to museums might be right up your alley, if I don't have to miss practice…"

Ah yes, Doctor Oliver's promise to cut their week-long string of detentions short if they could find 'something prehistoric' to show him. While the man had clearly been sending them on a wild goose chase to get them out of the way so he could do… something… evidently Conner was taking it seriously. But- "I hate to agree with him. Really, I do." Et tu, Kira? "But I already missed one rehearsal. Just because I'm the star of the show doesn't mean I don't need to practice."

That seemed to make even Ethan reconsider the prospect, and Dawn sighed as she watched each of her companions grab one of the stones: Conner the red gem that he'd been eyeing from the beginning, while Ethan took its blue peer and Kira snatched up the yellow one. That left two for Dawn to choose from, because she sure as hell wasn't going to be left without something to research from when this all went horribly wrong and she needed to bail the others out. Her eyes bounced back and forth between the green and pink gems, and then she realized… why not both? It'd give her a spare to mail over to Scotland if things got really bad.

Because hey, what could go wrong with gems that glowed when you pulled them out of a smoking chunk of rock?

Snort.

* * *

><p>Growling, Dawn ducked under another of the strange scaly monster's wild punches before kicking it in what passed for its face. This was why it was a terrible idea to rob people's secret lairs: the shit in them tended to belong to people who got really pissed when they realized they'd been robbed. And while the others were apparently spontaneously developing superpowers thanks to the stones they'd stolen, Dawn herself most certainly was not and so she was being pushed to her limits to keep up with their freaky, inhuman-looking attackers.<p>

Then Dawn twirled and delivered a palm strike to the chest of one unsuspecting attacker, caving its ribcage in and sending it flying twenty feet through the air to impact with a tree trunk, snapping its spine in half. Staring down at her hands in disbelief, Dawn's eyes widened as a distinctly pink glow stole over her skin and then the left pocket of her jeans lit up with brilliant pink light.

Well wasn't that just fanfuckingtastic?


	2. Chapter 2

Joe's Note: After making a list of the key scenes from _Day of the Dino_'s two parts that I felt I should touch on in an origin story, I realized I had too much content for one decent chapter and so I decided to retroactively insert additional chapters into this story. Chapter 1 covers most of _Day of the Dino Part 1_, while this chapter will cover the rest of _Part 1_ before moving into the start of _Day of the Dino Part 2_. A third chapter will cover the conclusion of _Part 2_ plus some original content, then we'll see the revision of my original _Replay_, and then finally we'll move on into original content.

* * *

><p>"Okay, so we all agree… no one talks about this to anyone. No matter what."<p>

Dawn rolled her eyes at Conner's need to state the incredibly obvious. Duh. The first rule of Fight Club was that you didn't talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club was that you didn't talk about Fight Club. The third rule of Fight Club was that if someone yelled stop, went limp, and tapped out, the fight was over… but that wasn't particularly relevant when it came to fighting monsters, Dawn had found out several years ago. Before she could share those thoughts, those, Kira spoke up. "I can do better than that." Pulling out the mysterious yellow gem that had started it all, Kira stared at it for a moment before slapping it down into Conner's hand. "I'm out of it. Just forget I was there, and I'll do the same."

Looking back and forth between Kira and Conner, Ethan furrowed his brow. "Wait. How come he gets it?"

That earned the dark-skinned boy the same look that Kira usually reserved for when Dawn said something IQ droppingly stupid. Or made post-coital puns. "Well fine. Here. Now if you two don't mind… Dawn, the rest of the band is already at the cafe setting up. I obviously missed my chance at getting a ride with anyone else because of detention. Do you mind?"

"Since saying yes would probably end with me sleeping on my own couch when you stay over this weekend… not at all?" The response earned her a raspberry from Kira, making Dawn chuckle before patting her fellow brunette on the butt playfully. "You know where the car is. I'll be down in a second." Kira shot her an uncertain look, and Dawn leaned in to kiss her girlfriend on the temple. "You may be out, but they're obviously not. Just want to share some… words of wisdom."

Up until now at least, Kira had largely respected Dawn's unwillingness to talk about her life before Reefside, despite the fact that they were dating and now even intimate. She was aware, however, that Dawn had been involved with something less than pleasant, that it had involved the now infamous town of Sunnydale, and that Dawn had run away from it. Dawn didn't doubt that this little exchange would spark a renewed interest in her past, but maybe it was time to come clean to Kira. After all, things were more than a little lopsided when it came to the trust department in their relationship…

As Kira wandered off down the road that led to the student parking lot, Dawn turned her attention back to Conner and Ethan. "Right, I've evidently got somewhere to be, so I'm gonna make this quick. That whole 'power and responsibility' thing? It's not just something that shows up at least five times in every _Spider-Man_ movie. We found out yesterday that those stones and the powers they give you aren't just some fun new toys. They're clearly a part of something bigger. So if you're going to keep exploring them… be serious. Don't let it take someone getting hurt for you to realize that it's not a game."

Before Conner or Ethan could respond, there was a strong blast of unnaturally cold air and Dawn looked around wildly. Like Sunnydale, Reefside was located in a portion of California with an almost strangely stable climate and that sort of chilliness rolled around on roughly the twelve of Never each year. Then a group of black figures came surging out of the bushes near Kira, and Dawn realized where she'd felt it before: in the woods the previous day. "Get away from me, freaks!" As the creatures pounced on Kira, overwhelming her with sheer numbers, Dawn burst into motion. Racing down the road, she threw herself toward the nearest enemy… and then went sailing through the air as the entire group was sucked upward into some sort of strange, black and green portal.

With Kira in tow.

Oh, it was on now.

* * *

><p>"This is all totally fascinating, but how is it helping us find Kira?" While Ethan did have a point there - Doctor Oliver's whole lecture about the origin of the 'Tyrannodrones' and his part in it seemed more like the obligatory exposition phase of a story than anything genuinely relevant to their situation - Dawn was actually kinda okay with the idea of sitting at the intersection for a few more seconds. Mostly because he was possibly the one driver who was worse than Buffy, and her stomach felt like it was still trying to catch up after being left behind a mile or two ago. At least he was helping, though, which was more than Dawn would have done if Conner and Ethan had tried to blackmail her the way they had Doctor Oliver. "I mean, she's not just going to fall out of the sky and land right in front of us."<p>

The sky picked that exact moment to turn black and green before spitting Kira out onto the hood of Doctor Oliver's Jeep with a loud thump. As Kira pushed herself up on her forearms, staring at them in surprise, Dawn leaned forward and let her eyes bounce back and forth between her girlfriend and the Magical Portal of Wish Granting several times before offering a request of her own. "I mean, Kira's clothes aren't just going to fall off to reveal sexy lingerie." Conner, Ethan, and Doctor Oliver all turned to look at her in disbelief, making her shrug defensively. "What? It was worth a try." Vaulting over the side of the Jeep, Dawn landed nimbly on the pavement and raced forward to help Kira off the hood. "You okay? What happened?"

"Kinda. I guess." Kira took a moment to pat herself down and check for injuries, before nodding in satisfaction when she found none and continuing. "And I have no idea. One minute, I'm being chased by Frankenlizard through this creepy lab, and the next thing I know? I'm a hood ornament."

"Invisiportals."

"Whatever. Next time, I'm calling a cab." As Kira wrapped her arms around Dawn and snuggled in against her girlfriend, the taller brunette eyed Doctor Oliver suspiciously. Helping create something that someone else later perverted wasn't necessarily a crime, but given how much he seemed to know about everything… Dawn found herself wondering exactly how far removed the man really was from what appeared to be a new Big Bad rising. "What are you guys doing here?" Dawn glanced down at Kira, who was looking around curiously. "Actually… where is here?"

The answer to the latter question was the intersection of… Church Avenue, Marine Road, and Crown Boulevard. As for the former, Ethan managed to toss out an answer before Dawn could. "We came to rescue you."

Kira snorted at that, unwinding one arm from around Dawn's waist and gesturing to her body. "Well, you did a great job of it. Way to show up when I don't need you anymore."

…a little recognition for their efforts would have been nice, Dawn thought, even if they hadn't born fruit in time. Because while Dawn was in fact proud of her girlfriend for managing to rescue herself - which boded well for the future of their relationship, given how many kidnappings seemed to occur within and around the Summers clan - the rest of them had done their best given the circumstances. After all, it wasn't as if kidnapping via portal was something they could go to the police to report. Before she could point that out, though, there was a crackling noise and a flash of black and green light in the corner of her eye. Conner took a step forward, nodding in that direction and drawing Dawn's attention to where a group of Tyrannodrones were being led forward by some sort of… black robot knight thing. "You sure about that?"

Dawn's existing unease when it came to Doctor Oliver only grew stronger as he forced his way to the front, slipping into a well-practiced combat stance as he eyed what Dawn was guessing would turn out to be Mesogog's third-in-command. If it was Mesogog himself, Oliver would recognize him. And as much as Dawn loved Kira, she wasn't worth sending a second-in-command out after. So… third-in-command at best. Maybe fourth or lower. Still. The man was way too aggressive for someone who was supposedly an academic and teacher. "Mesogog find a new goon to do his dirty work?"

While Dawn didn't really have experience with evil robots - Adam had been a cyborg, and even her invented memories didn't include the two of them crossing paths - it stood to reason that trying to goad them wouldn't work terribly well. They were robots. They didn't exactly have emotions, now did they? "You are not fit to speak my master's name. Come with me peacefully, or suffer the consequences."

"I'm going to have to say… no." Launching himself forward, Doctor Oliver ducked under the first swipe of the robot's sword before lashing out to kick at one of the Tyrannodrones that had accompanied it. Conner and Ethan quickly moved to join him, leaving Dawn and Kira behind to exchange exasperated glances before wading in to try and save them - especially Doctor Oliver, who seemed genuinely surprised at how terribly he was doing against his own creations - from themselves.

Times like this reminded Dawn why she wasn't interested in dating boys anymore. What a bunch of idiots.

* * *

><p>Leaning back to break their rather long goodnight kiss, Dawn offered Kira a smile and a wave as the brunette slid out of her car and slammed the door, hurrying up the sidewalk to the front door of her house. It took Kira a minute to find the right key on her overly busy keyring, but then she was through the door and safely into the house for the night. At which point Dawn pulled out her iPhone and the pink gem she'd stolen, using the former to snap several pictures of the latter before dialing Willow's number. Hopefully she wouldn't mind being woken up at six o'clock in the morning - pesky Reefside to Scotland time zone differences - or at least would understand Dawn's reasoning once she saw the pictures.<p>

"…give me one good reason why I shouldn't turn you into a frog. Twenty words or less."

"I grabbed a weird pink stone and now I think I'm turning into a Power Ranger." Pausing, Dawn counted her words through a mixture of curling each toe and then moving upward to her fingers, quickly realizing that she still had four words to work with. "And you hate frogs."

There was a long stretch of near silence; Dawn could just barely hear Willow talking mixed with replies from not one but two distinctly female voices. Hashtag giggity, go Willow. Deciding to put the time to good use, Dawn loaded up the photos she'd taken and sent them off along with one of a Tyrannodrone and another of the weird metal knight that she'd managed to catch during a break in the fighting. There was a displeased hiss as Willow returned her attention to her phone, but her response wasn't anything even remotely close to what Dawn was expecting. "The man fighting the knight. Do you know his name?"

"Uh, he's one of my teachers. Doctor… Thomas Oliver. Definitely Doctor Oliver, just not sure on his first name. Why?"

"The old Council felt its duty was to keep track of anything that was remotely supernatural or superhuman. He's a four time Power Ranger. Still active as recently as two years ago."

…well, at least he wasn't evil?


	3. Chapter 3

Joe's Note: Considering Rita Repulsa was a witch, and the entirety of _Lightspeed Rescue_ was focused on a government-funded Power Rangers team fighting against demons? Are any of you really surprised that the Council - and therefore the Scoobies - have access to at least some information about the Power Rangers? And no, I haven't forgotten about the fifth 'original' stone of this universe, even if the other teens seem to have missed Dawn's theft of it…  
><span>Dedications &amp; Thanks:<span> To Alexander, Nicholas, MJ, Nonamos_X, Emily, Judedeath, James, Ken, Thyatira, Daniel, William, Koby, Wil, Thomas, Christopher, Pat, Vi9, Chris, Juan, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on Patreon, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

* * *

><p>"So these mechanical dinosaurs, they're your friends?"<p>

"BioZords. Fusion-powered replicants, using actual dinosaur DNA for the neural functions."

"Wait, lemme guess. You helped build them?"

"I'm afraid so." That wasn't all he'd done, Dawn thought with a smirk as she followed the others through Doctor Oliver's basement, waiting for just the right time to drop her bombshell. She didn't want to shatter the team, especially considering they were likely the only thing that stood between these mechanical dinosaurs and an endless rampage through downtown Reefside. But at the same time, Oliver had to know that he wasn't going to be their Quentin Travers. They were going to work with him, not for him. "But right now we… I mean you have to tame them."

Ask and ye shall receive. Dawn's grin became almost sharklike as she wrapped her arms around Kira's shoulders from behind and leaned in to rest her chin on the smaller brunette's right shoulder. "So it's definitely third-person plural here, not first-person plural? Because if that flute dagger thing of yours is still around somewhere, I'm pretty sure the Dragonzord can take some mechanical dinosaurs. I've seen it do it."

Doctor Oliver's jaw dropped. "You know? How?"

"Well first of all, if I was just guessing? That would have confirmed it for me. But no. I did a little research on this. Asked a few people. They knew a few things." Reaching into her pocket, Dawn pulled out the pink gem that had started it all. Its green twin was still at home, sitting on her desk. Considering it hadn't reacted to her - or Kira, who probably didn't even know she'd been exposed - Dawn didn't see a need to lug it around all the time. "Turns out this isn't your first rodeo. Or your second, or even your third. But we can play 'Tommy Oliver, This Is Your Life' after we save the city. How do we ranger up?"

Clearly expecting a group of completely clueless teens, Dawn's confrontation left Doctor Oliver off-balance for several seconds but he managed to recover with admirable speed. Circling around them, he made his way over to a conveniently placed table that was home to a single object: a silver briefcase adorned with the same dinosaur footprint logo that was stamped all over the inside of his secret lair. "Ever since I found the Dino Gems, I've had these waiting in case I ever needed to harness their powers."

"Into what?" Kira's question earned her an incredulous look from Dawn. Seriously? She'd been about as subtle as an M1 Abrams. How did her girlfriend still not understand what was going on?

Thankfully, Doctor Oliver's answer was so blunt that there was no way anyone could possibly misunderstand. "Dino Morphers." He undid the latches and opened the case to display a quintet of fist-sized devices, each fairly evenly split between a silver 'jaw' and an upper half whose color matched one of the 'Dino Gems'. "Use these to become Power Rangers."

Having known it was coming, Dawn's attention was fully on her companions, eagerly anticipating their reactions. She wasn't disappointed. Well, for the most part. Kira managed to limit herself to a slight widening of her eyes, while Conner's jaw dropped as his eyes bugged out and Ethan… "I gotta sit down."

Given that having a team supergeek would probably come in handy at some point, Dawn mused, it was probably lucky for all of them that Conner was there to stabilize Ethan as his legs out, keeping the smaller boy from bouncing his potentially useful head off the edge of the table. "Breathe, dude."

Before Ethan could freak out any further - or Kira could say something else that might make Dawn cringe - Doctor Oliver pushed onward. "Your gems are from the asteroid that crashed into Earth millions of years ago, wiping out the entire dinosaur population. When I found them, I recognized their power and hid them so they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands."

And the right hands were a bunch of teenagers? The thought seemed mildly hypocritical given what the Scoobies had dealt with between Buffy's arrival in Sunnydale and the town's destruction, but- "How do you know these are the right hands?" Oh hey, neat, Conner agreed with her. That made Dawn feel slightly less bad about her thoughts.

"The gems are yours. You didn't choose them. They chose you."

"Awfully _Harry Potter_ of them, isn't it?" Finally removing her arms from around Kira's shoulders, Dawn stepped forward and picked up the pink and silver morpher. Unlike Kira's distinctly pteranodon-esque yellow morpher, hers was modeled after a dinosaur with a slightly stubbier and more rounded muzzle. Presumably the raptor that starred in the random disorienting flashes the gem kept sending her way. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure that we could whine about why this is a terrible idea until the city was rubble but… well, city. Potentially turning into rubble. Rampaging BioZords. Am I the only one who remembers these are currently things?"

Doctor Oliver actually blushed faintly at that, and Dawn's companions muttered under their breath as each reached in to collect their matching Dino Morpher. "All you have to do is say 'Dino Thunder, Power Up' and you'll be transformed. You'll know what to do."

Snorting as he turned his red and silver morpher over in his hands, Conner shot a look over at Ethan. "Dino Thunder. What, did you come up with that?"

"I kinda like it."

"You would."

"Jesus Christ, get a room or something." Bringing her morpher up, Dawn pressed it against her left wrist and a yellow strap materialized out of thin air, securing it in place. That done, she fished out her Dino Gem and slapped it down against the morpher, causing it to glow brightly and sink into the device. It had been an educated guess on her part; after all, Oliver had claimed the morphers were there to 'harness' the power of the gems. "Now, are we going to go big damn heroes or what?"

* * *

><p>If the frantic ride while searching for Kira was bad, the drive from Doctor Oliver's house out in West Buttfuck to downtown Reefside was terror incarnate. How Dawn managed to keep from losing her lunch - and her breakfast, and possibly last night's dinner - she had no idea, although she wasn't complaining. After all, puking on your girlfriend was a really good way to make sure you didn't get any for a while. Finally, though, they screeched to a stop in a parking lot near the waterfront and clambered out of Doctor Oliver's Jeep. "Okay, this is it."<p>

It was hard to miss the giant mechanical dinosaurs marauding through the city, or mistake them for anything else. Ranging from forty-five to one hundred and twenty-four feet tall, covered in greenish-grey armor and possessing brightly glowing yellow eyes, they were kinda hard to ignore. Conner evidently felt the need to be Captain Obvious, though. "That must be them."

Everyone turned to stare at Conner in disbelief, but it was Kira who managed to verbalize the first sarcastic retort. "Wow, good call, Conner. And here I thought this was just Toho filming the next _Godzilla_ movie here in town using practical effects."

Before things could devolve into full-on bickering, there was a crackling noise followed by the appearance of a red and black version of the Invisiportals that Dawn had seen four times already. This time, though, it heralded the arrival of just the black robot knight rather than the robot and a horde of minions. "You'll have to get past me before you get those zords."

Evidently feeling the need to take a page out of Doctor Oliver's book, Conner took a step forward and cracked his knuckles. "That's the part I'm looking forward to."

"Or you could leave him to me and go take care of the bigger problem." Dawn took three steps forward, slipping in front of Conner and turning to face him before gesturing up at the BioZords. "Big picture time. We have three zords tearing up the city - a tyrannosaurus, a triceratops, and a pteranodon - and four rangers. We also have a baddy who wants to fight. We could all fight him at once, giving the zords more time to tear up Reefside… or you could leave the one ranger whose zord isn't running wild to fight him while you go and tame your zords."

While Ethan and Kira seemed supportive enough of that plan, Conner frowned and shot a glance down at his morpher. "Just out of curiosity, doesn't being the Red Ranger mean that I'm supposed to be in charge?"

Dawn blinked a few times. She'd expected to be challenged by the boys, sure, but that was awfully strange grounds to do it on. "It's usually the Red Ranger, yeah, but the White Ranger took control of the original Angel Grove team after he appeared. Pink is white and red mixed together. So… I outrank you two leader points to one?"

"But that team had a Pink Ranger and she wasn't the leader."

"Oh, just shut up and morph." Dawn brought her left arm up in front of her chest, Oliver's promise that she would 'know what to do' echoing through her mind as she used her right thumb to push on part of the morpher, causing the silvery lower jaw to pop open and its eye to flash with green light. Forcibly suppressing the urge to do… something… more, Dawn stabbed her index finger down on the red triangle in the center of the morpher. "Dino Thunder, Power Up! Ha!"

* * *

><p>Looking around what was probably going to end up their command center or whatever Power Rangers called their version of Sunnydale High's library, Dawn shook her head. After a battle like that, she just wanted to sprawl out and relax, but her choices were two uncomfortable-looking metal chairs or the floor. And so furrowing her brow, she focused her will and what magic she did have available to her, supplementing it with the untamed but potent energy of her Dino Gem as she created a couch out of thin air. Medium grey with Doctor Oliver's golden dino footprint logo on each cushion, just to match the rest of the decor. Flopping down at one end, she patted the cushion next to her as an invitation to Kira as she met Doctor Oliver's eyes. "So. We saved the city, they got themselves some zords, I beat the crap out of Zeltrax… I'm going to call this a win all around."<p>

Doctor Oliver's eyes bounced back and forth between Dawn and the couch she was sitting on, finally returning to the brunette for good when Kira threw herself down and sprawled out along the length of the couch, resting her head in Dawn's lap. He managed to stay on subject, which didn't really surprise Dawn given the dossier Willow had tossed her way. The man had seen far weirder in the last decade or so. "Agreed. I'm not sure why your zord wasn't with the others, but we're still missing half a dozen or so and so I'm sure it'll turn up eventually. What I'm really curious about, though, is the fact that the Green Dino Ranger powers seem to have disappeared completely. The inert morpher is here, but the gem is gone and the Dilophozord wasn't with the three that showed up either. Are you sure none of you saw anything when you claimed your Dino Gems?"

Despite being quite obviously distracted by Dawn's show of magic, the two boys managed to offer up negative responses, followed by Kira. Dawn came last, doing her best to look innocent as she shook her head, running her fingers through Kira's hair slowly. "I was the last one to grab a gem, and pink was all there was left." Which was kinda sorta technically true: she had in fact been the last of the four to grab a gem, and the pink gem had been the last one remaining in the surrounding rock when she grabbed it. She was just conveniently leaving out that she had taken and pocketed the green gem before grabbing the pink one. Before Doctor Oliver could press her on the subject, though, she looked over at Ethan and Conner. "You know, I just noticed… mostly blue, lots of red. You two are already color-coded." Glancing down at her girlfriend, Dawn gave a gentle tug on Kira's hair. "Does this mean you're going to start wearing mostly yellow?"

"Ugh. Hell no." Kira craned her neck so she could stare down the length of her body, nibbling her lower lip gently as she thought. "Maybe a little yellow. But it's not the new black for me."

"So you're gonna be my little Hufflepuff then?"

"Laugh it up. I'm sure it's gonna be a lot less funny when you remember what color your Dino Gem is."

…aww shit.


	4. Chapter 4

Joe's Notes: We get a 'new ranger has a crisis of priorities when their previous top priority collides with ranger duties' episode literally every season, if not twice per season in the old days when we were looking at 40-50 episode seasons. It's obnoxious, it's played out, and considering we even saw a variant on that at least three times over the course of _Buffy_? I don't feel the need to repeat it here. Especially given that most problems can be solved by three rangers in _Dino Thunder_ and we're starting off with a team of four…  
><span>Dedications &amp; Thanks:<span> To Alexander, Nicholas, Howard, MJ, Chris, George, Koby, Emily, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, Daniel, William, Wil, Thomas, Christopher, Jack, Pat, Chris, Juan, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on Patreon, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

* * *

><p>"How have you never been to Cyberspace Cafe?"<p>

"Because I'm not a geek?"

"What, are you saying that I am?"

"Sweetie, you're carrying an armful of _Dungeons & Dragons_ books. I love you, but even I think you're a geek."

Dawn let out an indignant sniff, dumping the aforementioned books on a nearby table before reaching out to swat Kira on the butt. "Traitor. I'd make you sleep on the couch tonight, but then I'd end up having sex on the couch and it has that one spring that…" Dawn trailed off as Kira let out a distressed whimper and buried her face in her hands, looking from her girlfriend to the gaping Conner. "What? She's my girlfriend. Did you think we sat there braiding each other's hair when she stayed over my place?"

After a moment's contemplation, Conner offered up a shrug. "Uh, to be honest, I've been trying to keep my jock stereotype-ness to a minimum lately so you don't hit me for picking on Ethan, and so I've tried not to think about it. Now I am. I can't stop thinking about it. This is getting awkward." He let a tuneless whistle and looked around the inside of the cafe, before suddenly turning his attention back to Dawn. Specifically, her chest. Just as she was about to reach out and touch someone upside the heat, his eyes rose to meet hers and he let out a derisive snort. "Wow. That's super subtle, Dawn."

"I know, right? There was something about it that just… spoke to me." Dawn let out a giggle as she peered down at her newest acquisition from Victoria's Secret: a bright pink tank top. With the word 'PINK' printed in blocky letters across her breasts in white sandwiched between two more shades of pink. "What do you think, Kira? Is it me?"

Raising her head, Kira took one look at Dawn's shirt before promptly throwing her hands in the air and turning away. "Jesus fucking Christ. How did you sneak out of the apartment this morning without me realizing… you know what? No. Done. I am so fucking done with you right now. Hayley isn't even going to have to yell at us for PDAs today because you have lost that privilege." Huffing, Kira bent down to retrieve her guitar case before stalking off toward the stage. "The puns are bad enough, but that's just… ugh. I literally can't even."

"That's why white girls walk in odd-numbered groups!" Dawn let out a cackle as Kira flipped her off and kept on walking, before turning back to Conner to explain. "Get it? Walk in odd-numbered groups? Literally can't even?" She managed to count to four - and slowly at that - before comprehension finally dawned on Conner's face, making her sigh. "And you wonder why I want to be the team leader."

"I thought that had more to do with the events surrounding the fall of Sunnydale, specifically your sister?" Hayley's voice made Dawn jump and whirl around, but before she could lay into the older redhead for revealing her secrets, Hayley was already pushing onward. "Conner McKnight. The soccer player. I'm surprised that you're not at the open tryouts for the Reefside Wave."

Dawn had absolutely no idea why that was an important thing, but it evidently meant something to Conner. "Open tryouts?"

"Yeah. At their practice field, right now."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No." Hayley watched with a bemused smile as Conner muttered something, turned, and dashed off before returning her attention to Dawn. "And before you even say it, we both know he's not the type to actually look anything up. Your secrets are safe with him if for no other reason than that."

Oh, that was reassuring. Not. Dawn snorted. Even beyond the fact that Hayley was casually sharing her life story around, there was the matter of… "How do you even know about that?"

The corner of Hayley's mouth quirked up at that. "You really should take Ethan seriously and just assume I know everything. It'll save you a lot of time and aggravation."

Dawn let out a second derisive snort before looking away, only to pause as she found a pair of blue eyes studying her intently. Their owner was a cute girl who was at least a year younger than Dawn, possibly two, with shoulder-length hair that was rocking a cute blonde into pink ombré look. The rest of her was a giant puffball of black and white; a future cover model for _Elegant Gothic Lolita Monthly_ if Dawn had ever met one. "Oh? In that case, who's the mysterious girl staring at me?"

As she turned her head to follow Dawn's gaze, surprise flickered across Hayley's face before giving way to the faint smile the redhead usually wore. "Her name is Olivia Hillard. And she was in London with her mother last time I checked." After fixing the blonde with a long, hard stare of her own, Hayley abruptly hurried away, leaving Dawn standing there on her own as the redhead disappeared through the door into the cafe's back room.

"Well, that told me exactly fuck and all. Because I totally know who Olivia Hillard from London is. And now I'm talking to myself. Sigh." Dawn shot one last look at 'Olivia' before reaching up to hook a finger in the neck of her tank top, pulling it downward to expose more cleavage as she raised an eyebrow. Was the girl staring at her because… no, judging by the way the blonde blushed and turned away from that offer, Dawn was not getting stared at because of her awesome body. Damn. Not just because that would have simplified things significantly, but because every girl enjoyed being appreciated now and then. Then the bracelet on her left wrist warbled, making her sigh as she turned her back on her mysterious admirer. "What's up, Doc?"

"Still not funny, Dawn."

"Whatever. Seriously, what's up?"

"Can you meet me out at the end of Riverside Road in an hour?"

* * *

><p>"Fuck you, Doc, and fuck your glowing fucking mystery eggs!" Twisting, Dawn ducked under the flailing arm of one Tyrannodrone before nailing it with a palm strike, her Dino Gem-enhanced strength sending it flying back to bowl over three others. Following that up with a roundhouse kick to the face of another, she landed gracefully before spinning to point an angry finger at where Doctor Oliver was struggling to keep from being relieved of his black backpack. "Oh! And fuck your mysterious and hate-filled past with the robot dude and the creepy chick with the nice rack! Seriously, you have like… four fucking morphers. Did you have to leave them all at home? Because I could really use some help here who isn't a middle aged science teacher!"<p>

"Hey! I'm not middle aged! I'm only thirty-four!"

Before Dawn could point out that he was focusing on the entirely wrong part of her statement, a new voice joined the conversation. An unfamiliar, female voice with a British accent that Dawn couldn't quite place. "It's morphin' time! Zeo Ranger One: Pink!" A pink blur launched itself out from between two trees, opening fire with a pistol that spat angry red bolts of light at the Tyrannodrones. Landing in a crouch, the girl drew a sword from a holster at her left hip before spinning in a circle, using it to clear some space around her. "I've never actually done this before, but I'm pretty sure that morphing is an important part of Power Ranger battles."

Glancing down, Dawn blanched at the sight of her own bare hands. Right. As strong as she was now thanks to her Dino Gem, it paled in comparison to what she could do while morphed. "Oh. Heh. Yeah. One sec." Once again, Dawn found herself fighting the urge to move her body as she reached for the morpher, but she ruthlessly suppressed it. She'd seen the stupid little dance routine that Conner, Kira, and Ethan broke into whenever they transformed and she wanted no part of it. "Dino Thunder, Power Up! Ha!" As soon as she felt the power matrix stabilize around her, encasing her body in a pink and white costume with matching pink helmet, Dawn pulled her Thundermax Saber from subspace and threw herself forward to join her fellow Pink Ranger. "So. Zeo. That's… what, eight teams ago?"

"Depends on your definition of team, really. If you're counting Ranger power sets, eight. If you're counting teams of people… seven? Ish? Zeo Power Disc!" A shield roughly the same diameter as a basketball materialized in a flash of pink light, and the Pink Zeo Ranger stared at it uncertainly for a few seconds before looking up at Dawn. "What do you think I'm supposed to do with this? Everyone else gets a real weapon, and I get…" Trailing, she lunged forward and smashed a Tyrannodrone in the face with it, sending it sprawling onto its back on the ground. "Oh. Huh. That's not… entirely useless. I guess."

The sight of a ranger-specific weapon made Dawn wonder what other toys she had stashed away; like morphing, the knowledge came to her almost instinctively and since it didn't involve dancing around like an idiot, she went with it. "Raptor Rods!" With twin pink flashes, a pair of pink and silver tonfa materialized in her hands even as her sword disappeared into the ether. While it wasn't one of the very few weapons that she was even moderately competent with, given that the others seemed to derive every last bit of martial knowledge from their Dino Gems? Dawn was reasonably certain she could manage to give a decent account of herself with them.

She could.

With not one by two rangers on the scene, the Tyrannodrones were quickly beaten back. It almost made Dawn upset that her fellow Pink Ranger was presumably either a visitor or evil and about to turn on her, because they worked really well together. Turning her attention back to Zeltrax and Elsa, Dawn couldn't help but raise an eyebrow: somehow, Doctor Oliver had managed to… hurt Elsa? Or something. Zeltrax was standing over her protectively as she clutched at her wrist. One way or another, though, they were out of the fight, exchanging a few more unpleasantries with her teacher before being sucked up into an Invisiportal and disappearing from sight. Not that Dawn was going to complain; she had better things to do with her afternoon than beat the ass of the Big Bad's left and right hand mooks. There'd be plenty of time for that over the next eight or nine months. That just left one loose end. "So, now what?"

"Well, I'd teleport away or something but I think that ability was tied to the Power Chamber and not these Ranger powers." The Pink Zeo Ranger stared down at her hands for a few seconds before shrugging awkwardly. "Um, any chance you can distract Oliver long enough for me to sneak away and then I'll see you tonight when you wake up and find me watching you sleeping?"

Dawn opened her mouth, closed it, and then powered down before shaking her head and shooting an uncertain look over at the other Pink Ranger. "…you do realize how creepy that sounds, right?"

"…yeah, I guess. I should probably just break in, rob you, and be gone. But if I break in, I'm going to want to tell you why I'm there and what I'm taking. I'm kinda theatrical like that. I guess I could just raid your place for what I need while you're out and leave a note with all the details, though…"

"0-9-2-6-0-0." The corner of Dawn's mouth quirked upward as a flash of pink light heralded the demorphing of her companion, revealing a spectacularly confused Olivia Hillard. "I don't need you breaking a window lock or something. My front door has an electronic lock; that's the code. Now get out of here. And if you could pick up an avocado or two and leave them in my kitchen, I'll love you forever."


	5. Chapter 5

Joe's Notes: I'm not going to lie, while I'm working from an expanded Dino Thunder Ranger roster that I've used in other stories - notably a triple crossover between _Power Rangers Dino Thunder_, _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, and _Harry Potter_ that featured Cordelia Chase as the Pink Dino Thunder Ranger and Luna Lovegood as the Green Dino Thunder Ranger - I'd never actually thought about how the extra rangers contributed to megazord fights. So… let's see if I can make this shit work.  
><span>Dedications &amp; Thanks:<span> To Alexander, Nicholas, Howard, MJ, Chris, George, Koby, Emily, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, Daniel, William, Wil, Thomas, Christopher, Jack, Pat, Chris, Juan, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on Patreon, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

* * *

><p>Pulling her Raptor Rods free of the upgraded Z-Rex Blaster, Dawn sulked as she slid down the side of Conner's Raptor Rider and landed on the ground. Her lips quirked upward slightly as her own pink-armored raptor came trotting along with Kira and Ethan's, crooning softly as it rubbed its head against her shoulder. But as cute as her new pet was, life still wasn't even remotely fair. The others each had a giant robot version of their dinosaur to run around fighting monsters in, and all she got was… it was pretty much a bitier version of a horse. And considering she'd seen what looked like motorcycles under construction in one corner of Doctor Oliver's basement, the Raptor Riders would probably be obsolete soon enough. Ugh. Lame. Then a pocket of unnaturally dark storm clouds appeared in an otherwise clear blue sky, unleashing a torrential downpour on the chunks of dead monster and causing it to ooze back together before growing to truly massive size.<p>

Right then. Fight the monster again now, whine about the unfairness of crappy raptor-horses later.

Despite actually having the means to fight their newly enlarged opponent, her fellow Rangers seemed far more freaked out by the sudden twist than Dawn was. Recoiling from the massive, gun-toting bird, Conner brought his morpher up to his mouth. "Doctor O, we may have a problem on our hands."

"Let me guess. A thirty-story version of that guy you were just fighting?"

"You've done this before, haven't you?" The fact that Ethan's question didn't seem wholly rhetorical made Dawn wish she was demorphed so she could facepalm. It wasn't like she'd called their mentor out on being a past Power Ranger several times over in front of the others. Oh wait! She had!

Thankfully, Doctor Oliver seemed just as dumbfounded by the question, reassuring Dawn that she wasn't overreacting. "…I can't believe you just asked me that. I'm sending the Dinozords. Good luck."

As a roar echoed through the artificial canyons of Reefside, Dawn's lips slowly curled into an outright smile as she realized that she was being given a chance to test the theory she'd developed over the past few days. There was a definite connection between each of her fellow Rangers and their zord, which had allowed them to break the semi-sentient machines free of Zeltrax's control and was the reason the biozords continued to obey the Rangers' instructions now. While Dawn hadn't been able to feel a connection between herself and a theoretical Raptorzord, she also had no idea what she was looking for. And although Kira was about as magically sensitive as a rock, she obviously possessed such a connection with the Pterazord… and it was active as hell at the moment. "Kira! I need you!"

Stepping away from the others, Kira let out an uncharacteristically girly squeal of surprise as Dawn lunged forward and grabbed her by the wrists, reeling her in. After eyeing her girlfriend for a few seconds, Dawn spun her around before hugging her from behind, keeping her left arm around Kira's waist as she brought her right hand up to rest on the girl's chest. "Dawn? Not exactly the time for-"

"Mind out of the gutter, baby. If you really want, we can fool around in our Ranger suits when we get home tonight." Dawn ignored the strangled gasps that emerged from Ethan and Conner at her words, and Kira's whimper of embarrassment as well. Gathering her power, Dawn let it flow into Kira and permeate the smaller brunette's body. "Focus on your zord for me. There's a connection between the two of you. If we can find it, I think I can use it to find my zord."

"Didn't you tell me the other day that I'm about as magical as a rock?"

"No, I said you're as magically sensitive as a rock. You're plenty magical, or else this wouldn't work."

"Oh. Rock on."

"…and you say that my puns are bad." Dawn rolled her eyes at Kira's giggle before pulsing a bit more power into her girlfriend, making the smaller girl gasp. "You can do this. Just think back to when you freed the Pterazord. Focus on how you felt when you were freeing it." Kira nodded as she leaned back against Dawn, and then Dawn felt it: a thick tendril of power winding its way from Kira's wrist up her left arm to her chest, and then out through her heart to connect her to her zord. And just as she'd suspected-slash-hoped, Dawn had one too: while it was slender and tenuous compared to Kira's, it was most definitely there and connecting her to something. "Clever girl." Reluctantly drawing her power back out of Kira's body, Dawn carefully fed it into the fledgling bond between herself and her zord, systematically reinforcing it and then enlarging it before giving a harsh tug on the eldritch tether. "Raptorzord, now!"

The next few seconds were the longest of Dawn's life, and then came an almost musical trumpeting noise as the Tyrannozord, Tricerazord, and Pterazord were joined in their charge by a bright pink Raptorzord. "You did it!" Stepping forward out of Dawn's embrace, Kira bounced on her toes excitedly before looking over at their fellow Rangers. "Hey guys, where do you think it goes? I mean, we've already got an entire megazord…"

The two male Rangers exchanged looks, Ethan raising a finger before pausing and slumping a bit as he realized he didn't have the answer. Conner, on the other hand, decided that a more direct approach to answering the question was in order. "Only one way to find out. Let's go!" Bending his knees, the Red Ranger launched himself up into the air, phasing through the Tyrannozord's head as it charged through the space he was occupying. Ethan and Kira copied his move, entering the cockpits of their zords, and Dawn gave a shrug before following suit. Much to her surprise, instead of landing in anything remotely resembling a cockpit, she found herself floating in a white void with only a brown and pink ball for company. What was she supposed- "Combine powers!"

Without really thinking about what she was doing, Dawn let her hands drift down to rest atop the brown and pink ball, the black circle that adorned the sphere's top surging to life and filling with yellow light as she became one with her zord. With that accomplished, it was child's play to trigger the transformation sequence and join the others in merging into a gestalt form. It was surreal, Dawn mused; she could feel 'her' body shifting and reforming itself as the Raptorzord became a new left arm for the Thundersaurus Megazord, the tail splitting in half to form a pair of wicked claws. Then she was locking into position to replace the Tyrannozord's tail, and her void became a lot less empty as Conner, Ethan, and Kira shimmered into existence to her right. It was only going to get more crowded, Dawn realized, once Olivia managed to take possession of the Green Dino Gem and claim its power for herself.

…hopefully Olivia would go to the Reefside farmer's market and not the Albertsons near Dawn's apartment. Their avocados were shit.

* * *

><p>"…sweetie? Why is there a strange naked girl on your couch?"<p>

To be honest, Dawn was wondering the same thing. While granted she'd given Olivia free access to her apartment, she hadn't been expecting the girl to make herself at home to quite this degree. Although her inner perfectionist felt compelled to make an important correction to Kira's question. "She's wearing underwear. So… technically not naked."

Kira shot Dawn a withering look before reaching down into her purse and pulling out a canister of pepper spray that was cannily masquerading as a slightly oversized tube of lipstick. "Is mace going to fuck up your laptop, or can I spray her first and then drag her off the couch?"

"Bloody hell. If I'd known this was the kind of welcome I'd get, I would've just robbed the place and left." Olivia slowly closed the lid of Dawn's laptop and pushed it away to the end of the couch before bursting into motion, kicking off the back of the couch and launching herself into a spin that ended when her foot lashed out and connected with Kira's chest. Even as the brunette went stumbling back, Olivia landed in a crouch and wound her arms through a complex series of motions that ended with her slamming her Zeonizers together. "It's morphin' time! Zeo Ranger One: Pink!" There was a blinding flash of pink light, and then the Ranger from the forest was rising to her feet in the middle of Dawn's living room. "Let's go, Songbird."

Her morpher appearing with a flash of yellow light, Kira slipped into what Dawn recognized as the beginning of her weird little morphing dance. "Woah! Time out! You two are not doing this in here. If for no other reason than I want to get my damn security deposit back someday." Slipping to stand between them, Dawn put a hand on each girl's chest as she looked back and forth. "Three choices. One: we act like the adults we almost are and work this out with words like civilized people. Two: you two go out into the forest behind the complex, beat the shit out of each other, and then the winner drags the loser back here in time for dinner. Or three: I conjure a kiddy pool full of chocolate pudding for you to fight it out in and two bikinis, and you can get changed while I try and see how many video cameras I can borrow from my neighbors."

Kira's mouth moved soundlessly for a few seconds as her expression slid from anger to disbelief to confusion, and then she finally managed to complete a thought and vocalize it. "…why would you need video cameras plural?"

"Oh come on, you've seen what I can do with Final Cut Pro and stuff from our iPhones. Can you imagine what I could do with a better setup?" Dawn wiggled her eyebrows before removing her hand from Kira's chest and gesturing to the large expanse of open floor between them and the bay window that looked out onto the street. "I'm thinking I want at least eight cameras: four for setting up at ordinal points around the pool, then probably one each low and looking up at due north and south… and definitely one pointing straight down on the action from the ceiling. Oh, and obviously one for me to roam with so I can capture the action from whatever the best angle is at any given moment. Although I doubt anyone here has a high speed camera, so I'd have to figure out how to attach our phones to the tripods so I can get some hundred and twenty frames per second action…"

By the end of her detailed explanation, Kira's face was almost as red as Conner's Ranger suit, or at least the bits that Dawn could see were. The brunette was doing a really good job of trying to permanently merge her face with her palms. Demorphing with another flash of pink light, Olivia let out an incredulous chuckle. "I thought Rangers were supposed to be all good and pure and shit."

Peeking out from between her fingers, Kira's eyes raked up and down Olivia's underdressed body and then the brunette let out a snort. "Says the Ranger who lays around strangers' houses in her underwear."

"Hey, nobody ever chose me to be a Ranger. I stole these things from my mum's room before I flew over here to… err, because reasons." Olivia looked down at her hands, summoning and dismissing her Zeonizers with twists of her wrists. Bringing her arms up to cross over her breasts, she shot a baleful look at Dawn. "And I wouldn't have stripped if a certain someone here had a normal thermostat. I have no idea how to turn on the air conditioning here, and that dress isn't meant for stuffy ninety degree rooms."

Dawn did her best to look innocent as she pulled out her iPhone and used the appropriate Notification Center widget to set the house's desired temperature to a more comfortable seventy-five degrees. In her own defense, she had the app on her phone and so did Kira; forgetting that a visitor to her house would be unable to mess with things was a totally honest mistake. "So. About those avocados…"

Shivering as a burst of cool air brushed over her skin, Olivia snatched an abandoned t-shirt off the back of the couch and pulled it on. Thankfully, Kira didn't protest the appropriation of her Amethyst shirt, following the smaller girl as she wandered into Dawn's kitchen. "Got 'em. They're over here on the print out for… avocado shrimp things. Which is why I didn't go with my backup idea of robbing you and leaving a note, if you're curious. I haven't had a meal that wasn't served by a pimply bloke in a polyester shirt since I landed here in America."

"Avocado shrimp ceviche-estillo sarita."

"Yeah, that."

"Hmmph. 'Avocado shrimp things'. Philistine." Joining the pair in her kitchen, Dawn nodded in the direction of the fridge. "Kira, there's a big bag of shrimp in there. I trust you to devein and chop them without removing a finger or three. Olivia, you get to peel them for her since I don't know you well enough to say the same. I'll do the rest of the chopping and dicing. And while we work, you can explain why you're after a Dino Gem and why you didn't just take it from your dad's house before I stole it."


End file.
